making an enemy of the Irish people is one of Israel's biggest mistakes.
when a genocidal state takes on the people who invented anti-colonial struggle, it accelerates its own demise.
Good day, spectators,
And as I opened the news this morning, I was extremely unsurprised to see that Israel had once again fired on Irish peacekeepers in Southern Lebanon. A headline that we had not seen for a few months. You would be naïve to think that this has nothing to do with the fact that Ireland became the first EU nation to call the genocide a genocide. Many of us already know Israeli bots have been engaged in a smear campaign to paint the Irish as committed antisemites because Ireland is the most outspoken Western country on the subject of Palestine.
You see, there is a moment in the death spiral of every oppressive regime when it lashes out at the wrong one. When its rage blinds it to the power of those it dismisses. Israel, in its frantic campaign to crush dissent over the genocide in Gaza, has made a terrible mistake. It has picked a fight with the Irish.
goodbye, Israel.
A year ago, Israel still had an ambassador in Dublin. Today, that post is empty, abandoned in a fit of rage and diplomatic tantrum after Ireland had the audacity to call a spade a spade. The Israeli government, feral and frothing at the mouth, declared Ireland the ‘most anti-Semitic nation in Europe’ which would be laughable if it weren’t so transparently desperate.
Obviously, Ireland didn’t flinch. Instead, we doubled down.
Whilst other European leaders waffled on about ‘proportionality,’ Ireland’s government took the step of formally recognising Palestinian statehood, and not as some distant aspiration, but as an immediate, non-negotiable reality. It was a direct challenge to Israel’s narrative and a refusal to play along with the fiction that Palestine is merely a bargaining chip in some endless ‘peace process.’
The Irish Taoiseach becoming the first European leader to call the genocide a genocide was a welcome development too.
Watch: Irish PM speaks plainly on Gaza. 28.5.2025.
And Israel’s response was as predictable as you might imagine: screech louder. To smear harder. To dig its way further into pariahhood.
the irony.
To be honest, the idea that a nation that suffered 800 years of British colonial rule, one that knows intimately the taste of famine, displacement, and cultural erasure, would even think about siding with an oppressor is absurd. But Israel doesn’t really operate logically. It deals only in projection.
When Ireland condemns the mass graves in Gaza, Israel screams ‘anti-Semitism!’ as if caring about dead Palestinians is somehow hatred of Jews. When Irish artists like Kneecap wave flags, Israel demands they be prosecuted for ‘terrorism’ as if solidarity is a crime. But here’s what Israel fails to grasp: the whole world is watching and they’re on Ireland’s side.
the diaspora.
There are five million people in Ireland but there are about 100 million Irish scattered across the globe. Let that set in.
From Boston to Buenos Aires, from Sydney to São Paulo, the Irish diaspora is a sleeping giant. And it is one that, for centuries, has turned colonial suffering into a force of unification. The Irish didn’t just survive the Great Hunger; we spread across the waves, the globe and brought with us a story of neverending resistance that resonates everywhere. The downtrodden, the anti-imperialists, the good guys—all friends of Ireland.
Ireland isn't just another small country. We're the ultimate underdog. We are the people who slapped the British Empire back and turned its oppression into cultural dominance and whilst other nations brag about their military power or economic might, we wield something far more dangerous: we're liked.
Every single time Israel attacks Ireland. Every time it tries to smear our politicians or target our artists, it isn’t just alienating a government. It’s alienating millions and millions of Irish-Americans, Irish-Australians, Irish-Argentinians and all of our friends.
And those millions? They vote. They organise. They remember.
the Kneecap test.
Nowhere is Israel’s blunder more obvious than in its allies’ persecution of Kneecap:
UK charges Kneecap with ‘terrorism’ on the same day it refused to stop arming Israel's genocide.
‘Instead of defending innocent people or the principles of international law they claim to uphold, the powerful in Britain have abetted slaughter and famine in Gaza just as they did in Ireland for centuries. Then, like now, they claim justification.’ - Kneecap.
Liam Og Ó hAnnaidh, one of the trio’s members, is currently facing terrorism charges in the UK for holding a Hezbollah flag at a gig. The flag wasn’t even his, but was thrown onstage. That’s not really important though, the important part is the message. And that message is clear: if you dare use your platform to loudly criticise Israel, then the full weight of the state will come down on you.
But the backlash has been immediate and delicious.
Because Kneecap isn’t just any band. They’re Oscar-nominated, BAFTA-winning, globally recognised artists who’ve turned the Irish language into a weapon against the Empire. And now, thanks to this laughable prosecution, they’ve become even bigger symbols of resistance.
Israel’s allies in the British government thought they were silencing dissent. Instead, they’ve amplified it. And I am here for every minute of it.
a warning.
This is not the first time an oppressive force has underestimated the Irish but it will be one of the most spectacular miscalculations of this decade.
Britain made this mistake before. For centuries, they believed Ireland could be crushed and that our language could be outlawed, our leaders hanged, our children starved into submission. Oh how wrong they were. The harder they pressed, the hotter and brighter we burned. The more they stole, the more we planned. And when the reckoning came, it was not in the halls of Westminster, but in the streets of Dublin and the halls of the General Post Office, it was in the hunger strikes of Maze Prison and in the quiet refusal of a people who would not disappear.
Now Israel, you are welcome to repeat the error.
They think this is about diplomacy and about political posturing. About the temporary inconvenience of bad press but they are wrong. This is about legacy. About history's unblinking eye. About the immutable truth that oppressive entities—no matter how vicious, no matter how armed, no matter how convinced of their own righteousness—always fall. And when they do, it is the voices they tried to silence that will write their epitaph.
When the story of this genocide is carved into the world's memory, Ireland's stance will be remembered. Not as a footnote, but as proof that national conscience still exists. Israel is desperate. It smears, it threatens, and it makes pathetic attempts to criminalise solidarity but this will all be remembered too. Not as a strategy, but as a confession. Every single lashing out and rage-filled diatribe only proves what we already know: they are the bullies. We are the resistance.
And resistance? Well that’s what we do best.
So let England come with its courts. On the 18th of June, Liam, aka ‘Mo Chara’ will stand before them…but he will not be standing alone. We will be there in London, at his back. The streets will answer. The diaspora will answer. Our friends and comrades will answer. History itself will answer.
Come if you can! Organise if you're far. This is no longer about one person or one flag or one trial. This is about drawing a line so bright that every complicit government will see it burning in the dark. Bring instruments, flags, signs and show up to peacefully let them know we will not accept being silenced.
Edit: Last-minute edit to remind you to listen to Kneecap’s new song. This is a song to get your Brits out to:
The Irish people do not fear you.
And the tide? Well that always turns.
And on that note, I will leave you for the weekend,
(And as always, thanks for reading, make sure to subscribe and do please give this post a ❤️ and restack below too.)
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Read more from the spectacle:
Two words: “We’re liked”. So important, so true.
Two other personal observations:
The poetry, music, and language, of the Irish is, relative to its size, unequaled in the world. Culture is essential. Palestinians are famous in the region for their love of learning, poetry and literature. Have you heard Israeli music? Watched their theatre and television? And that’s a huge clue, because all over the world the achievements of Jewish entertainers and artists are spectacular. It’s as if the Israeli national pastimes of killing and hatred have drained away their innate gifts.
Two: I was fairly young then, but I followed Bobby Sands, and his cause, very closely. At the time I thought: How can anyone conquer a people willing to die of hunger rather than give in? It didn’t happen then, and it won’t happen now.
Éire go brách. Palestine go brách
Needed this today deaglan, thank you, you've got me energised! Powerful